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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22835014">Days like this</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrictlyNoFrills/pseuds/StrictlyNoFrills'>StrictlyNoFrills</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Hobbit - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Just a boy and his blades, Pre-Hobbit Era, Rated for canon levels of violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:14:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,325</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22835014</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrictlyNoFrills/pseuds/StrictlyNoFrills</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fili just wanted to go home from his work in a Mannish forge in peace.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Days like this</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/InCahootsWithTheDwarves/gifts">InCahootsWithTheDwarves</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you for the idea, Zulfiya! I hope you enjoy it and have a wonderful Fili Friday!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a pretty good chance Fili had orc blood up his <em>nose.</em></p><p> </p><p>That would explain the nauseating prevalence of their stench, even after putting several leagues between himself and the source.</p><p> </p><p>Something hot and sticky oozed its way down the back of his neck, beneath his ponytail, and he grimaced, reaching up with a hand that was scratched and bruised and scraped beyond what he usually expected after several months spent laboring in a Mannish forge, and he swiped at the offending substance with a resigned, muted irritation. It was far past time to find a water source where he could cleanse himself of all this filth. He felt beyond disgusting, and wished he could go back to this morning, when his day had begun with such promise.</p>
<hr/><p>The sun was barely beginning to make its way up into what promised to be a clear, brilliant sky later in the day when Fili shouldered his pack and went to settle his account with the innkeeper of The Bubbling Cauldron. Merrick was a decent sort of Man, having never once tried to overcharge Fili the way that many of his race were wont to do. Fili, in turn, had been as generous with his tips as he felt he could get away with, knowing he needed to balance his appreciation for Merrick’s hospitality with the needs of his people.</p><p> </p><p>The settlement in Ered Luin had grown beyond the poverty it had known in the six decades since his amad had brought Fili into the world, but Fili and all the other young, unwed dwarves still had a duty to ply their trades outside their settlement and bring the proceeds of their labors back.</p><p> </p><p>He felt good about the smithing he had done in this little town, and he was more than ready to return home and add his earnings to the fund for those dwarves who were too wounded after the war at Khazzaddum’s gates decades before to provide for themselves. Many such dwarves had family to care for them, but there were also those who had lost everyone, either during the sacking of Erebor or the war.</p><p> </p><p>Fili spared a prayer to Mahal for those poor souls brought low by his family’s actions and set out for home.</p><p> </p><p>As his thoughts turned to happier things, his usual swagger returned, and a song fell from his smiling lips. The Maker was surely smiling down upon him on this day.</p><p> </p><p>The first half of this day’s trek passed peacefully. He encountered only birds and a few small beasts, and a few farmers and traders driving their carts.</p><p> </p><p>Fili gave each Man a nod and an affable grin, one hand discreetly resting on the hilt of a dagger hidden up his right sleeve. They nodded back, continuing on their way.</p><p> </p><p>He stopped for lunch beneath an ancient, giant tree, the long, laden branches and their full leaves giving him some relief from the heat of the midday summer sun.</p><p> </p><p>It was as he was polishing off the last few bites of a hunk of cheese that he heard it.</p><p> </p><p>The strange thudding unique to orcish boots, and clanking of poorly wrought and maintained armor. He stared down at the tiny bit of cheese still left in his hand and sighed in a near-silent gust.</p><p> </p><p>Stuffing the cheese in his mouth, he worked his jaw around it doggedly as he hid his pack beneath a hovel created by a series of roots sticking up from the ground, and drew his swords, setting them aside carefully. Rising to his knees, he turned to peer out from behind the broad trunk of the tree.</p><p> </p><p>Ten orcs, all fairly small and horribly motley, were headed his way. He considered, for a moment, trying to stay hidden and allowing them to pass. He was alone, after all, and there was no honor lost in not picking a fight.</p><p> </p><p>But these orcs should not even be here. No one expected them to come this far from the Misty Mountains. Not in these times of tense peace. They could all sense that the world was again beginning a slow slide into darkness, but it had not yet reached the point where they had to watch their backs at every turn. This group might come across some unsuspecting farmer or merchant, and that was something Fili would never be able to forgive himself for allowing to happen.</p><p> </p><p>He drew several throwing knives from various sheaths sewn into the lining of his leather jerkin, and as the first of the unsightly band came within range, he poked his torso out from behind the tree and sent each of the blades to make their homes in the necks and faces of the oncoming orcs.</p><p> </p><p>One. Two. Three. Four.</p><p> </p><p>By the time the fifth body began to fall, the others had recovered from their bewildered stupor and started to charge at his shelter with snarls and furious curses falling from their lips.</p><p> </p><p>Picking up his swords, he sprang up to meet the first arrival, whose slightly longer legs afforded him the first death. He blocked the orc’s blade, which looked more like a badly rusted scythe, away with one sword and gutted him with the other. As the orc convulsed, Fili cut off his head for good measure, sending inky black blood flying in every direction. Then Fili parried the thrust of the next orc.</p><p> </p><p>There went six and seven.</p><p> </p><p>A burst of pain along his back alerted him to the fact that one of the orcs had managed to come up from behind him, and he jerked around to strike away the blade which had doubtlessly torn through his cloak before rending his jerkin and striking his chainmail armor. He ducked and allowed orc eight, who had reached him at last, to cleave orc nine in half for him, and then drove his sword into the base of orc nine’s neck.</p><p> </p><p>When Fili spun around, he found ten eyeing him with an unattractive, if understandable mix of hatred and terror. Fili twirled his swords in his hands.</p><p> </p><p>“I’d let you go,” he said in a lazy, conversational tone, “if I didn’t know you’d only knife me in the back the moment I turned it to you.”</p><p> </p><p>Ten shook his head in denial, and Fili raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “No? Well, alright, then. You seem like an honorable orc.” There was no such thing. “I’ll just take your word for it.” Dwalin would thrash him if he ever found out that Fili had pulled a stunt like this. Guess he’d better just keep the details of this little skirmish to himself.</p><p> </p><p>He angled his body in the other direction, heard the faint tell-tale melody of a blade singing through the air, and a grimly amused smirk graced his lips as he twisted back to bat it out of the air with his own blade. Then Fili charged.</p><p> </p><p>Ten put up more of a fight than the others. Perhaps he was older and more experienced. Perhaps he was just desperate. But though ten left quite a few small marks upon the few exposed parts of Fili’s skin, he still fell to the ground to join his companions in the end.</p><p> </p><p>Fili stared down at ten’s body and nodded tiredly, beginning to feel the aches and pains in his limbs. That was that, then.</p><p> </p><p>He took out an old rag from one of his pockets and wiped his swords clean of gore and ichor and sheathed them before retrieving his knives and giving them the same care. Then he returned to the tree and took up his pack, deciding it was high time he got back on the road.</p><p> </p><p>If anyone in Ered Luin wondered why he stopped tying his hair up off of his neck outside the confines of the training grounds and the forge after this stint away from the settlement, they were kind enough not to ask.</p>
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